'
f
ednesday • September 10, 1997
lickin’ it up
student seeks revenge after
one too many parking tickets
By Michael Schaub
Staff writer
TTSUX.
It is hard to ignore the personalized license
plates on Lance White’s Jeep Sahara. The junior
echanical engineering major gets a lot of smiles,
|ares and laughs from passers-by.
“I love seeing people in the rear view mirror read the
ites and laugh,” White said. “That’s my favorite thing.”
bite requested the plates, which refer to Texas
M’s Parking, Transit and Traffic Services (PTTS),
Saiter receiving several tickets from them.
■ “The last two tickets weren’t even on my wind
shield,” White said. “They just showed up on my fee
statement when I was studying for finals.”
;■ But not everyone is amused by White’s license
plates. The Texas Department of Transportation re-
^1E
OGtU^
By Mi
I’d be pretty upset if somebody said I
sucked. But I wouldn’t go complaining to
|he Department of Transportation about it.
I’d just try to suck a little less.”
LANCE WHITE
OWNER OF “PTTSUX” LICENSE PLATES
|cently sent White a second letter, demanding he sur
render his plates.
I “I’d be pretty upset if somebody said I sucked,”
(White said. “But I wouldn’t go complaining to the
Department of Transportation about it. I’d just try
:o suck a little less.”
I William D. Pool, branch manager for the special
>lates division of the Department of Transportation,
said the department made a mistake in issuing
White’s plates to him.
“It’s.not a good reflection on the department,”
Pool said. “‘SUX’ shouldn’t have been there. We
deem it offensive.”
White, who also has bumper stickers reading
“PTTSUX” and “PTTS SUCKS” on his Jeep, said he
does not take Pool’s letter of recall seriously.
“I’m going to tell them that I thought it was a
joke,” White said. “I didn’t take it seriously, since the
letter was so full of typos. I expected more from the
manager of special plates.”
Tom Williams, director of PTTS, said he did not
request the Department of Transportation recall the
plates.
Williams declined further comment about Wliite
and his license plates.
White said he is using his bumper stickers to get
revenge.
“I thought I was being a nice guy by not giving
stickers to everyone I know,” White said. “I was per
fectly happy being one little Aggie with an attitude.”
But after White received his letter from TDT, he
started selling the stickers to dormitories, fraterni
ties, sororities and A&M employees.
“It’s like when you’re a kid and your big brother
picks on you,” White said. “You can just quit or you
can try to piss him off. The whole thing is sort of ju
venile, but you’ve got to do something. No one else
has found this offensive. But one license plate is a
lot more offensive than having a thousand cars in
your lots with bumper stickers, and that’s what’s go
ing to happen.”
White handed out stickers to students waiting in
line to buy parking passes and bus passes last week.
“I know |PTTS Clerks are not] that bad,” White
said. “People go in there and go postal and freak out,
but the clerks aren’t the ones who write the tickets.
People in the office try to be as nice as they can.”
White has less sympathy for some of the FTPS officers.
"W“ The Battalion
Lifestyles
RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion
Junior mechanical engineering major Lance White recently received a request from the Texas Department of
Transportation to surrender the license plates on his Jeep Sahara. White said he does not take the request seriously.
“I’ve never seen anyone getting a warning slip,”
White said. “Once, I got a ticket for not having a
hang tag, but I had a window decal. I know better
than to park without a permit. I’d last about five
minutes.”
White said one PTTS officer told him that he
would receive fewer tickets if he removed his
bumper stickers.
“To me, that means, ‘If you kiss my butt and make
me feel like a real cop, you might get out of a tick
et,”’ White said.
One PTTS officer even ran after White’s Jeep in or
der to issue him a citation.
“That’s the only time I’ve seen them run,” White
said, “unless it’s raining.”
PTTS is the only campus department that regu
larly incurs the wrath of students, White said.
“I’ve never heard anyone complain about (UPD)
or anything,” White said. “I ran into an old Ag in
Houston, and he told me that the only bad memo
ries he had of A&M came from PTTS.”
Given the unpopularity of PTTS among some
A&M students, White said, his license plates are not
that shocking.
“It’s no surprise that everyone hates them,” he
said. “No surprise that everyone thinks they suck.”
White said he plans to surrender his plates to the
Department of Transportation, but he said he will
continue to sell the bumper stickers.
“Student Locator works wonders,” White said.
“Over a hundred people have flagged me down.”
And although he will keep the bumper stickers on
his Jeep, he concedes that not everything PTTS does
is entirely bad.
“Most of the time, people deserve their tickets,”
White said. “PTTS does some good things. They try
and do some things to take the emphasis off how
much they suck.”
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